Last Wednesday, the largest orthodox Jewish organization in the United States, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, better known simply as the Orthodox Union or OU, shamelessly welcomed Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the keynote speaker at is annual Washington advocacy mission. Worse, it gave Sessions a nice plaque with the Hebrew inscription צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף, literally “justice, justice you shall pursue”, quoted from Deuteronomy 16:20.
The pushback was immediate and strong. Jews who have not been involved publicly in politics were outraged. The internet traffic on Jewish web sites and social media has been huge. The Orthodox Union got its Facebook page drowned by negative comments and one star ratings. People asked why rabbinical organizations didn’t do anything.
The pushback had an effect. Just before Shabbat last Friday afternoon the OU lent its name to a statement with 26 other Jewish organizations condemning the policy. Then two rabbinical organizations acted. The conservative Rabbinical Council of America put a statement on its Facebook page; he more liberal International Rabbinic Fellowship had acted even before the OU.
I wish I could say that this is a nearly unanimous position among religious Jews but that is not the case. Most orthodox Jews voted for Clinton but there still remain areas of very strong support for Trump in orthodox communities, particularly in some (not all) anti-Zionist charedi areas in New York and New Jersey. This despite the fact that, as one person I met this past Shabbat noted, Trump is “exactly what we don’t want our children to grow up to be”.
If you are religious, in any way, be loud and unaccepting of unacceptable policies. For Jews, we note that the commandment not to oppress a stranger appears repeatedly in the Torah and that the Rabbinic tradition identifys being inhospitable to strangers as the sin of Sodom that resulted in the city being destroyed. (No, it was not about sex — that seems to be a Christian interpretation.) Now is the time to speak out!